Mark the Start
by TMBlue
Summary: COMPLETE! Ron and Hermione return to the Common Room for a midnight snack after Prefect rounds, late 6th year. For Romione Fluff Fest 2017 on Tumblr.


_**A/N:** This was my second submission to the **Romione Fluff Fest** on Tumblr this year. I just realized I never got around to posting it, and I've been struggling to work on my WIPs this week, so here you go, in the meantime. Hope you enjoy it! x_

 _ **Prompt:** Common Room at midnight_

 _This fic was also very, very loosely inspired by the song "Dials" by Tommy Reilly in the sense that when I was trying to come up with a title, his lyrics "please say I haven't taken too long - have I? - to sort my head out, to mark the start of this night... I hope this was the start, that maybe there's more" popped directly into my head. It was also inspired by two of my RL friends who I have been shipping pretty hard for a while now..._

* * *

They were finishing rounds, and his stomach was grumbling insistently. It had been hours and hours since dinner, and he kept thinking about hot chocolate, even though the weather had turned spring-warm, hot enough to roll up his shirt sleeves to the elbows and unbutton his collar. Before thoughts of midnight snacks had entered his mind, he'd been thoroughly focused on the fact that this was the first time in ages they'd spent patrolling together. Especially in comfortable silence. Which this was.

Comfortable.

Except for the pounding of his heart when her hand brushed his and the way he felt too relieved to risk planning a second, more meaningful apology. They weren't great at those, and silence was easy.

He should have known years ago that they'd reach this point, where one or both of them would resort to hurting each other in a much more personal way that had nothing to do with rats and cats or bloody stupid Christmas dances. But Lavender had led him to a few personal realisations that he wasn't entirely ready to look directly at, though he occasionally tried, wide awake in his four poster when he'd smile, thinking of Hermione… thinking of her hand on his arm while he'd been recovering from poisoning in the hospital wing.

"One more floor and we can go back," she said, yawning.

"Think I should go ahead and order a sandwich to be waiting for me in the Common Room?"

She leaned sideways as she walked, shoving her shoulder into his arm as she bit her smiling bottom lip.

"Are you honestly hungry?"

"Why not? We've walked the damn castle corner to corner."

"If you'd rather not have come along-"

"No, didn't mean that," he said, much too quickly, missing the fact that she was obviously teasing him until he caught her eyes, amused crinkles at the corners.

"Well," she moved on, clearing her throat, "the house elves don't need to be up making you a snack at midnight. But, if you're really that hungry, we could stop by the kitchens…"

"Seriously?" His stomach grumbled again, as if encouraged by her suggestion.

"Sure. We're already close to the stairs down to the basement."

"Brilliant!"

* * *

A quarter of an hour later, he'd toed off his shoes and collapsed onto the Common Room sofa, holding a plate of treacle sponge pudding in his lap and setting a cup of rich, hot chocolate on the table in front of him. Hermione removed her bag from her shoulder, dropped it to the floor, and sat beside him, which he found mildly surprising, considering the hour. He glanced sideways at her, trying to read her expression from her profile as she reached down to take off her own shoes, obviously planning to stay with him for a while.

"Have you started your essay for Monday?" she asked, as he picked up his fork.

"I'll do it tomorrow," he said, as he scooped up a large bite and felt her turn to look at him.

It wasn't that she was watching him, exactly… but there was a new sort of silence now, alone in the Common Room, and he wished he could know what she was thinking.

"You sure you aren't hungry?" he asked, recalling that she'd hardly eaten today. It hadn't been so apparent to him until now, as he sliced the side of his fork through the pudding on his plate again and watched her eyes flick down.

"You go ahead," she said quietly, but he wasn't fooled, and he had more than he really needed. Not that it would have made a difference. He'd share either way… maybe wasn't gonna tell her that, though.

"Here."

He dropped his full fork to his plate and held the plate out for her to take. She eyed him for a second before accepting. But, rather than set it on her lap, she bent her right leg up onto the sofa and placed the plate on the cushion between them.

Sometimes, he couldn't help what he did until he'd already done it, like a few of the unfortunately mean things he'd said to her over the past few weeks… or the way his gaze jumped down, just now, to skip across the suddenly exposed skin of her thigh, between the point where her knee socks ended and her skirt had ridden up her leg from her new position.

But then she lifted his fork to her mouth, closing her lips around it to clean it as she slid it back out. He almost choked as he tried to swallow at the wrong moment. Surely she'd shared food with him before, hadn't she? But he honestly couldn't recall. And, if she had, it had certainly not been like this.

She held out his fork to him, and he hoped he wasn't totally imagining the way her hand was lightly shaking as he reached to take it, his fingers touching hers.

"Thank you," she said, and he looked down to take another bite as he hummed a dismissive response, a good cover for his ears warming up as she watched him.

As he put the fork in his mouth again, he accidentally made very brief eye contact with her and was immediately, irrationally confident that she knew exactly what he was thinking...

Blatantly sharing a fork was the closest he'd ever been to snogging her.

"You were right. I guess I _am_ hungry," she said. "Mind if I have just a bit more?"

"Have as much as you want." He lifted his left arm to extend down the back of the sofa, hand resting far too close to her shoulder. Or not close enough?

He cleared his throat as she took another bite and closed her eyes.

"Thought you didn't like sweets very much."

"Still don't," she confirmed, opening her eyes again and handing back his fork. It seemed they had set off on a pattern of taking alternate bites. "But I don't know. This is really good right now."

He could agree wholeheartedly with that, though he was flip-flopping back to being sure she _didn't_ know it was mostly because he felt entirely relieved and entirely overwhelmed, both at the same time, both absolutely bloody perfect.

He'd missed her far more than he cared to admit.

"Y'know what?" he asked around a mouthful of sponge. She shook her head, the tiniest smile emerging. "S'might be th'best pudding they've done."

"Be sure to tell the house elves that," she smiled wider.

"Next time we visit, I'll bring a few extra socks."

He handed her the fork again, and, this time, when she took it, most of her hand overlapped his for a moment, and he was positive his heart skipped a beat.

"Hermione?" he started, watching her carefully, not even fully sure what he was going to say next, but she was sliding the fork between her lips again, and her eyes met his.

"Hm?" She lowered the clean fork to the plate, waiting.

"Thanks for visiting me, in the hospital wing."

Her eyes briefly widened before returning to normal and darting down to the cushion between them, clearly just for something else to look at.

"Oh, I-"

"I know I sort of said that to you before, but…" He could do this, he reckoned. It was nothing, between friends. Maybe he didn't yet know how to say everything he felt, but he could do _this_. "It meant a lot, is all."

Her eyes shifted back up to find his once more, slightly wider than normal, again, but no longer full of shock. This was something else, like a certain dash of disbelief was mingling with hopeful acceptance.

"I'd always have come, you know," she said, so quietly. And though he knew she had meant to say more, from her light intake of breath and darting gaze, she didn't quite make it, and he understood. And this was more than enough. "Your hot chocolate's getting cold."

He stared at her for a moment longer before scratching his cheek and tugging the corner of his mouth up into a lopsided smile. She shyly returned it, briefly retracting her bottom lip between her teeth. As he removed his arm from the back of the sofa to turn forward and reach for his cup, she stole another bite of his food and sighed.

"You can finish that, if you want," he said, tilting his head toward the last sliver of pudding, which she gladly ate before moving the plate to table and scooting closer to him, both feet back on the floor. The side of her leg pressed against his, and he shut his eyes for a short moment. When he opened them again, he took a long sip of his drink, realising he'd been generous, even by his own standards, in how much chocolate he had added.

"Is it good?" she asked, in a sleepy, scratchy voice that made the the hairs on his forearms stand on end. She was staring at his cup, and her hair was frizzing so close to his face that he could feel a few strands tickling his jaw as she sniffed.

"Yeah, try it."

He moved the cup toward her, and she reached to take it from him, basically holding his hand for a second in the process. He watched her lips curl around the cup rim and she took a sip. Her eyes widened as she glanced sideways at him.

"Wow. You must've used all the chocolate in Hogwarts to make this."

He grinned at her as she took another drink.

For the next few minutes, they passed the cup back and forth in silence, mesmerised by the low-glowing embers of the dying Common Room fire. Warmth radiated from her body, against his side, and he felt too many things at once to name, focused mainly on the nervous anticipation of being alone, together, in the quiet night… of sharing a cup, lips against the same edges. It was immediately the most intimate thing he thought he'd ever done, which was absurd, of course, given his recent mistakes... snogging someone else for weeks. He wanted to ask why she had forgiven him, those short two weeks ago, on his birthday, in the infirmary, waking from swirling nightmares with an aching stomach, but willing to take anything at all in exchange for her sitting there by his side…

And yet, maybe more importantly, in that moment, he wanted to ask why she had stayed here, tonight. Even when they'd been on good terms before, she'd gone to bed after their rounds, especially when they'd come back this late. But she didn't seem to have any desire to leave, and he would stay right here for as long as she didn't move. If he didn't know any better, he'd think they were making up for lost time, almost unwilling to part ways at all. And it hit him that he'd more than gladly accept her presence, always. It would mean a lot, he figured, when he had time to think it through, alone in his four poster, wishing she was there.

The next time she handed his almost empty cup back, she moved the tiniest, almost imperceptible amount closer to him, and he felt immediately compelled to do the same, which must have broken some layer of reserve, because her head was suddenly tilting down to his shoulder, and he sat in breath-holding shock, a feeling of fuzzy contentment spreading through his limbs that had nothing to do with the hour or the chocolate.

Her hair was bunched up against the side of his neck, and her hand had slid a bit off her own thigh until two of her fingers were overlapping his leg.

This was one of those bloody important moments, when his heart beating wildly behind his ribs was his first indication that he might do something more… something he thought she might just want him to do.

He could reach to the side table, over the right arm of the sofa, so he placed his cup there, hoping she couldn't feel his heartbeat through his damn shoulder...

And then… it may have been subtle, at first, but he rested his left hand on his leg, so close to hers that he could touch her little finger if he moved his own merely half an inch. He felt her sigh again, slow and deep, and because he couldn't see her face anymore, he wondered if her eyes were closed, if she could see at all what he had done, what had taken all the bravery he had to initiate, even though he had only made it halfway there. But, before he noticed what she was doing, he felt her sock covered foot hook behind his ankle, and his bravery returned in full force. He moved his hand to overlap her last two fingers with his own, shoving away any more second guessing.

It wasn't quite holding hands, but it was bloody close enough. She moved her fingers further underneath his, he gently curled his knuckles around hers to hold on, and he thought he felt a little shiver run through her before the faint crackling of an almost nonexistent fire filled the room, the only sound that remained, aside from their slow, contented breathing.

His eyes cracked open, in the dark, and he registered a crick in his neck and a weight on his upper arm at exactly the same time.

Hermione.

He'd fallen asleep in the Common Room with Hermione, and she was now fully holding his hand, palms together.

He could have cried with happiness, but he stared in disbelief, instead.

Much too soon, he felt her lightly flinch next to him, and he wondered what he could have possibly done to wake her, but he also knew that it was too late. She sucked in a sharp breath, and, though he couldn't see her face, he somehow knew the moment her eyes popped open.

"Oh! Sorry!" Her head jumped up off his shoulder, cheeks tinged a blotchy pink, and she quickly withdrew her warm hand from his.

"It's fine!" He winced at how unreserved his voice sounded, clearing his throat.

"What time is it? I didn't mean to… well…"

He thought she may have cut off her own sentence due to the suspicion that it wouldn't have been the truth to say she had been _completely_ out of control of falling asleep down here, with him… They'd made very little effort to leave, closing their eyes instead...

"Right," he said, clearing his scratchy, sleepy throat. "I guess we should-"

"-go up to bed, yes."

She scooted away from him and stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder and collecting her shoes in one hand by the buckles. He stuffed his feet into his trainers and noted, with only a mild blush, that his plate and cup were gone. Opting, of course, not to mention this fact to Hermione, he yawned and stood next to her, following her to their opposite staircases. But he felt a nagging insistence that he should have more to say. That this wasn't enough. He turned to look back at her, delighted to see that she had done the same.

"I'll… see you at breakfast?" she asked in a small voice, finally meeting his eyes.

"Yeah," he said, unable to hide the smile that bubbled up as he stared across at her with heavy-lidded eyes, filled with nearly lightheaded warmth at the sight of the extra ruffled right side of her hair, from where she'd been sleeping against him, also noting that her left sock had slid down off her knee to mid-calf.

Could he honestly think the word 'love,' right now, and not combust from embarrassment? Apparently so, which he would find staggering later, looking back. He could both think it… _and_ go on staring at her, until that undefinable moment where it turned from close friendship to everything else, and she didn't break away.

"Goodnight, Ron," she whispered, and her eyes never left his as she spoke.

"'Night," he said back, because one syllable was stretching the limits of all he had left, all he could do with his cracking, unsteady voice.

She nodded, a gentle smile in place as she turned away at last. And he did the same, only as she began to ascend the stairs to her room, only once his image of her walking away from him tonight firmly replaced all the others he had before, the ones that had hurt, the ones he had caused. Tonight, they were gone. He had this new, brilliantly perfect one, right now, instead.


End file.
